Hello all and Merry Christmas. My 244 GL had been giving me a problem starting cold for the last month or so, got worse a couple of nights ago and finally quit yesterday. The starter had started to drag after a couple of turns, as if the battery was suddenly incapable of turning the engine over, then, almost immediately, the engine would start. The battery is plenty strong, and I suspected from previous experience that something in the timing/distributor is the cause. The timing is set dead on. Over the last week, the engine would spin but not catch. I would push down on the distributor wiring harness where it enters the distributor and Presto!, the engine would always start. Well, we had a cold snap the night after Christmas and I thought I was gonna have to walk home from work. After fifteen minutes of poking at the wiring harness and turning the key, the engine finally started and ran like normal. Yesterday a.m. it was frosty and the engine didn't start again. This time no amount of poking revived the car, and I pulled the coil wire to verify there was no spark from the coil. In a bout of wishful thinking, I changed the coil (it was cheap) but no soap. I am thinking that the ignition control unit has gone south. Anyone who has had similar problems, please enlighten me as to what you did to fix the problem. Thanks in advance,
Bill